Harvard profs may OK limit on A's, and students aren't happy

Harvard professors "voice cautious support" for a proposal to cap the percentage of A grades, at 20 perfent, report Abigail S. Gerstein and Amann S. Mahajan in The Crimson. This fall, 53.4 percent of grades were A's, down from 60.2 percent the year before.

A faculty committee proposed the cap last week to control grade inflation. The faculty will vote on the proposal in April.

“Grading is a collective action problem. When some instructors raise their grades, that puts pressure on other instructors to raise their grades too, and the pressure for higher grades snowballs over time, making it hard for any course to hold the line,” wrote David I. Laibson, an economics professor, in a statement.

Professors say enrollment drops if they get a reputation as a tough grader.

Harvard students "slammed" the proposal to cap A grades, reports The Crimson.

“You accept a bunch of top 3 percent students in the country and then get surprised that we’re getting all As,” Harlow W. Tong ’28 said. “We pay to go here to get the product, which is to have a better signal of performance. If you’re just lowering that for everyone, then you’re just lowering the value you provide as a business for the same cost, even while raising tuition year over year.”

Students would be less likely to collaborate with classmates, if everyone's competing for a limited number of A grades, said Ricardo A. Fernandes Garcia ’27. “It cuts intellectual conversations. It just encourages people to reserve their own knowledge for the sake of beating everybody in the classroom.”